What a week :o)

End of Semester Wrap Up

So the 179 page paper of doom (POD) is going to be completed over the summer; but it’s good, and it’s getting better (I realized as I was reading it over in the Linguistics Department Lounge that had someone else presented it to me, I’d be the first asshole in the class to raise his hand and object to…everything). I felt really comfortable sitting down with Wolf the other day and going over it with him though. He was able to point me in the direction of other books and academic works to read through and liked my transcription system (which needs some work, but is certainly a start). While the paper has a B, I think not taking the opportunity to complete it and get an A would be foolish; so Wolf and I compared calendars and we’ll both be in the Country July 20th (he’ll be in Brussels most of the summer and almost all of next semester and I’m in Israel for most of June) so we’ll be meeting then…sadly, I don’t foresee this paper being shorter than 250 pages…and believe me when I tell you that I’m not happy it’s turned into something this expansive or this long…I had originally planned for it to be no longer than forty pages – max – and it is so not forty pages…and the more I trim and try to delete, the more data I find to take up the previous paragraphs spot…and this isn’t double spaced either…it’s really just grown past where I thought it was going too, which was poor planning on my part and I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that I lacked the experience to know just how big a project like this really was going to get.

I am so incredibly excited to be TAing for Scott Paauw next semester you don’t even know. I admire him and respect him for a lot of reasons, partly because he’s already done what I plan on doing: traveling, playing by your own rules and also because he doesn’t walk into the room with the immediate verdict that his students are mentally handicapped (which some professors, sadly, do)…he treats students like people, challenges them, and they constantly rise to meet and then exceed the bar that he sets (it’s amazing what can be accomplished when someone says “you can” instead of “you can’t”). I stand to learn a lot from him. Plus it will be interesting to see the course that I took from him previously from a different vantage point: the front of the room, rather than facing the chalkboard. It should be pretty exciting overall and the fact that he wants me to take an active role is wonderful; because I’ve TAd before and some teachers think of their TAs as hall-monitors and attendance enforcers.

When I went in to meet with Dr. Jaeger the other day and she saw that I met the requirements to be accepted into the Applied Track that was pretty cool too. I forgot that the teaching internship (which I did for six credits instead of three, in the inner city of Buffalo at The Martin Luther King School, my Sophomore year before I was a Linguistics Major) was required for that; as were all of the Sociolinguistic courses that I’ve taken and the Linguistic Anthropology course that I’ve taken (so essentially, my interests lead me directly into it). The only class that I was missing to complete the track was Phonetics (LIN421) which I was already registered to take with Dr. Jaeger this coming semester anyway because it’s an area of Linguistics I want to improve in (Phonology is on that list as well, unfortunately I don’t have time for it so I’ll have to work on that one on my own at some later date).

So I’m very excited, the track fits more with what I’m planning on doing anyway (Translatology is under Applied Linguistics) than the LS&C track did and frankly, it looks much better on paper (and sometimes that helps when you’re, you know…applying for a job in the real world…and it helps even more when the person hiring you doesn’t quite understand or know what you do for a living…they’ve just been told that they need to hire a Linguist).

My Uncle (who, might I add, sounds like Piglet from the Animated Winnie the Pooh Series and looks like a stuffed badger – his bio photo doesn’t do it justice, I’ll try to find the photo I took of him at my Grandfather’s 80th when I’m home in this weekend) was in NYC the last weekend for a one day conference of some sort (he’s the guy that sits across from you at the table and interviews you when you’re up to become a fellow or a diplomat) and attended the show that my Parents and Grandparents saw and went out to dinner with my family and apparently didn’t understand why on earth I would be applying to Grad School if “all I was doing” was Translation and Dad rushed to my defense and informed him that I was the best damn linguist in the world thank you very much (way to go Dad!) so while Dad may not understand exactly what it is that I’m doing, he’s now on the starting lineup and going to bat for me, he gets it, he finally gets it!

I’m thinking of taking my time and working out a nice letter – in Arabic – for my uncle though, and writing at the top “‘all I’m doing is Translation,’ enjoy…” What an asshole. I’ve really made no attempt to hide the fact that I find him incredibly irritating…this is the same guy that tried roasting my Grandfather at his 80th birthday party and insisted that my Grandfather was incorrect about what branch of the armed forces he served in during WWII because somehow his snot nosed anti-gay, bigot of a child would know better (he tried to tell my grandfather that he was given the wrong patch for his uniform because there was a shortage). Gomer Pyle owes his ass to the Air Force for the four years after he graduates and there’s going to be a line around the barracks to whoop his ass and it couldn’t happen to a nicer person…I may donate a towel and a bar of soap to the cause. It’s a good thing that the cousins I love (Rach, Mike and Danny) all live 30 minutes from my parents house in Briarwood, Queens.

In other news, poor Dr. Michelson has been fighting with her computer all semester; I was in her office Thursday afternoon and both of us just sort of looked at it and had no idea how Praat got so screwed up (only one, in a string of issues she’s apparently had with the thing, both hardware wise and software wise); and to be quite honest, I haven’t kept up with computers nearly as much as I possibly should have. I think the main reason behind that, is once I decided I didn’t want to go into computers as an occupation, there’s only so much time I have to dedicate to things…and the spare time that I have to dedicate to other academic ventures has since been spent reading translation books, and text books, and essays and other dorky things like that. I mean, I can make my domain, email and blog work, and I can use all of the linguistics software I need to but in no way, on any planet, am I anywhere near as good as gryvon is (who, by the way, just got a Fellowship at UB in the Computer Science department so go congratulate her!). So, after staring at Praat for awhile, going into the settings folder, going back to Praat and staring at it again (because if you repeat the same action, over and over, expecting a different outcome, things will work), looking in the hall to see if the professor who studies Computational Linguistics was in his office (he wasn’t) I made the only suggestion I could (and, really, I got this one from my Grandma): tie a red ribbon or string around the computer and maybe that’ll ward off the evil eye that’s currently making it not work (an academically sound conclusion, I assure you).

“I’m a punk rock prom queen, brown paper magazine, hotter than you’ve ever seen, everywhere and in between, I’m a ten ticket thrill ride, don’t you wanna come inside?” – Josie & The Pussycats

I’ve noticed I have a lot of old (and new) IRA songs on my laptop as well as a ton of Russian Techno…I need some Czech music though.

starbuckx and irenefinlay are finally on facebook, which is cool. I also friended ladymaidmarian’s daughter who still calls me Mr. Bovine (bless her). I’m almost done with Twitchy’s gift (it’s amazing…) and will be delivered to his house exactly six months from Valentines day (so we can have our own valentines day)…it may send him into a twitchy-esque coma…but probably no where near as bad as the first day I met him, since he’s gotten used to me over the past few years. Suffice it to say, it’s one of my best works to date and I laugh to myself thinking about it.
24 Days Until Israel

I’m incredibly excited…and I really, really need to raise some cash, so I’ll be getting on that this week too. In other news, 8 months, 2 weeks, 6 days until I graduate!

“Just RKO It!”

iolausian was right, I loved Swing Time!! I’ll be writing my review of it when I land in NY because as I look at the clock, I have five hours to pack, make some food and get ready to leave for the airport! I do, however, have to learn how to make animated icons so I can make some more Astaire icons…I’ll set that as a summer project.

And he’s off!
Tunes: :Twisted Sisters – Girls Rock Your Boys